


Polaroids

by heckmedic



Series: TF2 Oneshots [4]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst, Crossfaction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6571579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heckmedic/pseuds/heckmedic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You've got all these pictures. Surely you know that we can stab each other just the same? Put a bullet between each other's eyes, no problem? A quick fuck behind the radio room didn't hinder my ability to kill him, or him me."</p>
<p>"Not yet. But how long will it be before you start asking him to hang around with you after? Before you give each other pet names?"</p>
<p>He couldn't say anything to that. Couldn't admit that maybe there was a tiny grain of hope in him that that would be what would happen, with time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polaroids

Administration was a decidedly unpleasant place.

All of the hallways looked the same, branching off into endless white-tiled corridors that ended with black glass doors. None of them were numbered or labelled in any way, but sometimes odd sounds or hushed voices could be heard coming from within. Inside one of these innumerable meeting room, Sniper sat slouched in his chair, eyes closed and hands resting over his face as though trying to hide. A headache pulsed steadily behind the bridge of his nose.

He didn't want to be there.

He didn't want Spy to be there.

There had been no sign that he was, of course. But Sniper knew. If he was in for disciplinary action, so was he. Even the small comfort of a familiar face was not allowed and it'd been hours since he last heard anybody coming down the corridor, let alone seen another's face. In the silence, a clock hung above the door ticked. Sniper glanced at it dismally.

4:05 PM

They'd come for him earlier that morning. Roused him from bed at the asscrack of dawn. The agents had all been dressed in black, wearing shades and earbugs so they all looked like clones of each other. He'd resisted a little at first, wanted to know what he was being taken in for. Miss Pauling's words had been brief, but they'd taken all of the bluster out of him immediately.

"It's about the BLU Spy."

He could only imagine the way his shoulders had slumped at that, the quiet hiss of resignation that had escaped. He'd been given time to dress and a coffee (too sweet) to sip in the car but nothing else. No files. No key cards. Not even handcuffs. Whilst the car rumbled away into the distance, he considered showing them how much of a bad idea that might've been. But the car was a small space and trained assassin as he was, he didn't fancy his chances surviving a nasty car crash. They'd undoubtedly left respawn range some time ago. So he'd sipped his coffee and imagined the desert rolling past through the blacked out windows, letting the guards and the driver live to fight another day.

Sniper was an exceedingly patient man, but if their idea of a punishment for him was to make him sit alone in some too-clean room for a day then they were going to be sorely disappointed. For the first few hours, he'd occupied himself easily enough. Flicked pieces of gravel stuck in the treads of his boots at the door petulantly, stretched and groaned to himself when his joints began to seize up. Then he'd started to get bored.

His thoughts drifted to Spy.

To his sworn enemy. To his lover.

_Slow down, Mick._

The first time had been just a month ago. A quick fuck behind the radio room. Moans colouring the air; sand grinding under his feet as he drove forwards again and again, a warm body pressed against the hair on his chest. It only took five minutes for Spy to paint the wall white. Another two to come down off his high enough begin dressing. Sniper had lit his cigarette for him once they were both decent again and Spy had left. In spite of himself, a fond smile came to his lips as he recalled the strained sway of the other man's hips. In the match the next day, Spy had planted a knife between his shoulders and he, in return, had kneecapped him before putting a second bullet cleanly between his eyes. Back to business, just like always. Graceful and elegant on Spy's part, clean and efficient on his.

Easy.

The second time had been a few days after that, again during battle. Sniper had passed Pyro in the hall, turned and paused at the scent of the wrong kind of smoke on his fire suit. The brief wrestle into the broom closet had ended in a clash of teeth, hands scrabbling over zips as Spy had rutted against him like an animal. The disguise kit covered up the come stains on his suit perfectly. When Sniper had stooped in front of the tiny mirror in his van to shave, he'd traced the little circle of red bite marks on his neck with wonder. Later, his back had arched up off the bed as he pinched at that same bite mark, coming harder than he thought he ever had before.

The day after, another knife fight, this time a victory with the kukri. Just business. Sniper didn't think either of them had intended for it to become a habit-or at least regular. Now, when Spy drew close to bury a knife between his ribs, his last feeling before succumbing to respawn was that of a gloved hand groping at his crotch. Sniper wondered if he'd ever died on the battle field with a hard on because of that.

He hadn't expected this vice to turn on him so quickly. Absently, he wondered where Spy was if he was as bored out of his mind as him. Sneaky bastard had probably managed to escape through an air vent or something by now. A little wistfully, Sniper glanced up at the vent in the corner of the room. A sigh escaped him; he'd probably fit his fist in there, nothing more.

The door opened with little warning and he started in his chair. The woman who entered was unfamiliar to him. Blonde curls tumbled to her narrow waist. A slim manila file was clutched in her manicured hands. Sniper made no effort to hide the searching look he gave her as she settled herself on the other side of the table. He resisted the urge to bristle as she fiddled with the file, blatantly ignoring him until she was ready to speak.

Eventually, she raised her eyes from the file. Her look didn't waver even as he tried to layer steel into his gaze. It was Sniper's hope that everything about the way he was slouched back in the chair and refusing to fidget under her eyes was broadcasting his disapproval. If she noticed that, she didn't show it.

"Do you know why you've been brought here, Mr Mundy?"

A crisp, clinical voice. English accent.

Sniper let the pause stretch out as he considered whether to tell her or not. He decided not to play with fire.

"I was told it was about...A colleague."

"The Spy in the employ of Builder's League United is not a colleague, Mr Mundy."

His response to that was to grunt and glance away. A moment later he heard her flick the file open and begin dealing shiny Polaroid photographs out onto the flawless surface of the table. She did so for nearly a minute and he regarded the chessboard of images that now lay before him. He didn't know which one to look at first; all were equally incriminating.

"What's this?" said gruffly.

"Evidence. Or, if you choose to comply with my recommendations, insurance."

He perked up at that.

The woman smiled then, folding her hands carefully before her. With an inclination of her head, she invited him to pick up one of the photographs. He went for one of Spy, taken candidly in the bright light of midday. He was looking uncharacteristically ruffled. If Sniper looked closely, he could see the wrinkles in his suit, faint stains around the front of his trousers. He resisted the urge to smile.

"Insurance huh. Against who?"

"Your employers, Mr Mundy. Us."

He held her gaze for a moment before setting the photograph down with a huff of laughter.

"Why're you giving me these?"

"We aren't. These are motivation, for you. Think of these as payment for agreeing to our terms."

"Which are?"

The smile immediately left her face and her tone of voice changed instantly.

"End your dalliance with the BLU Spy, or these photographs shall be mailed to your parents, in increasing frequency and number, until you do so."

Sniper felt his muscles turn to iron. All the moisture left his mouth. Some of the photos showed nothing but skin, close-ups of his or Spy's faces twisted at their respective moments of climax. If his parents saw these, Sniper thought he'd lose all will to live.

But he wasn't going to give in that easily. Feigning ease and disinterest, he settled back in the chair, which creaked in protest. The woman watched with thinly veiled interest.

"And, if you don't mind me askin', what's the problem with me an' the BLU Spy engagin' in this "dalliance"?"

She blinked in surprise before a frown of confusion flittered onto her face.

"Aside from breaking contract? You both risk exposing team secrets and strategy, as well as forming a relationship which could affect how you fight."

"You've got all these pictures. Surely you know that we can stab each other just the same? Put a bullet between each other's eyes, no problem? A quick fuck behind the radio room didn't hinder my ability to kill him, or him me."

"Not yet. But how long will it be before you start asking him to hang around with you after? Before you give each other pet names?"

He couldn't say anything to that. Couldn't admit that maybe there was a tiny grain of hope in him that that would be what would happen, with time.

"How long until this deepens, Mr Mundy?" she continued, a little softer now. "How long until you sight him up in your crosshairs, and find yourself unable to pull the trigger? Do you see now how this could be a problem?"

He was hired by RED for one thing: To kill. With precision and efficiency, from a distance, so as to provide support for the other men on his team. Elsewhere in the building, Spy sat at a table, speaking with a woman who might as well be a clone of the one speaking to Sniper.

She also sat forwards with an expression of polite apology, as though she could understand.

"Do you see how this could be a problem, René?"

"Don't call me that."

It was said softly, with a gaze averted to the carpet floor. His hands itched to fiddle with something; a cigarette, a knife, anything. Disarmed as he was, he felt naked. He wondered distantly if Sniper felt the same.

He had been hired by BLU for one job; to steal. To lie and to pretend and to infiltrate the ranks of the enemy, so as to provide support for the other men on his team. Already, he felt uneasy when choosing his lover's face from his disguise kit. It felt all wrong to occupy his skin and body as though really him.

The pristine assistant before him echoed his thoughts gently, tracing a manicured fingertip around the file on the table before them. It contained too many stories and numbers and names for his liking, and he knew all of them were true. All of them also carried a high price on the black market, and the release of such secrets would ruin him the moment his contract with BLU ended.

His employers were holding him hostage with the prospect of a life outside of work, of retirement. What, he wondered, were they holding over the Australian's head?

"How long until you find yourself unable to put a knife between his ribs, Rene? How long until you can't look in his eyes and know that you were the one who put that revolver round between them? Already we've noticed you express distaste in using his aspect of your disguise kit."

Spy let out a long, controlled breath and forced himself to sit up straight in the seat. His usual mask of detached interest settled easily into place; she must have seen the barriers come crashing down, because her expression closed off as well. The file lay heavily between them.

"And what of it?" he replied with false nonchalance, "I have seventeen other faces to wear. More than enough, to bring about victory after victory. You forget I have invisibility on my side as well. I can make do without the RED Sniper's disguise."

"I see." She replied coldly. Across Administration, the other assistant said the exact same thing, with the exact same expression of disappointment on her face.

"Then you leave us no choice. Prove within the next week that you have ended relations with the RED Sniper, or we will be forced to terminate your contract and release your files to all interested parties. The guards will see you out."

In the other room, Sniper sat forwards, desperation in his eyes. Feeling victorious, the assistant slowly sat back down again.

"Wait. At least let me talk to him."

"Why?"

Sniper swallowed.

"'Cause I think you and I both know this isn't the kind of conversation two guys can have in the middle of a firefight. Let me do it here. I...I'm sure he'd want the same."

She considered for a moment.

"Very well. I will arrange for something soon. Wait here."

She wordlessly left the room, taking the photographs with her. As soon as she was gone, he leapt up from the chair, hissing swear words and messing up his hair as he paced the long length of the table.

"Jesus Christ...What else was I supposed to do-I can't just fucking-"

And so it continued. Spy, for his part, slumped with resignation in the chair and closed his eyes, wishing to wake up any moment now whilst he waited for the guards to arrive. There was nothing more to do.

But they didn't. When the door opened again, it was to the same neatly-dressed woman as who had spoken to him earlier. She seemed a little less put together than she had earlier and he watched her intently as she moved to hold the door open for him.

"Change of plans. He wants to speak to you. Privately."

"Who?"

"The RED Sniper."

He couldn't hide the surprise he felt at that, so instead he rose from his seat and followed her down the hall. He supposed they walked for about five minutes. He tried keeping track of the path they took, but failed. Administration was one ant-hill of a place.

Their path terminated before two white double doors. The assistant turned to him with a look of resignation.

"He's waiting for you in there. Take as much time as you need."

The room smelt of cleaning solution and that curious static smell that followed intense vacuuming of office carpets. Sniper sat tensely at a small circular table by the window. The landscape outside was the same nondescript red desert he had seen so much of.

Upon hearing the door open with a sigh, Sniper had jumped to his feet. His hat was being mauled by his anxious hands, and his hair was messed up as though he had run his hands through it again and again. Spy struggled to maintain his cool demeanour for a moment.

But only a moment.

"You wanted to speak to me?"

Several expressions, among which were giddy excitement and dread, crossed Sniper's face in the space of half a second. He settled on unease.

"Hell, don't make it sound like that, Spy-"

"Why not?" he interrupted smoothly, moving to stand beside the window. His suit was immaculate, as always. He forced himself to keep his hands behind his back rather than fiddle for want of a cigarette.

"What is there to say, Sniper? I trust you were brought here for the same reason as I?"

Sniper visibly deflated and closed his eyes as he looked away.

"Yeah...They want us to stop this...Whatever it is." he invented with a circular motion of his hand. Spy studied him with detached sympathy.

Somewhere in the ceiling, a ventilation fan hummed quietly. A door elsewhere in Administration sighed open, then slapped shut, echoing itself for a few seconds before silence fell again. Spy considered what to say for a good few moments before looking out of the window again. He didn't want to see Sniper's face just then.

"Then this is what we must do, yes?"

"What-you're not gonna fight 'em or anything?"

"Besides the fact that a casual fuckbuddy is not worth "fighting them" for, I had a considerable threat held over my head. I assume they found equal leverage against you?"

There was a sharp intake of breath behind him, and a small creak as Sniper shifted in the chair.

"I-yeah...Yeah, they did."

Spy found it all too easy to close himself off from the other man as he had done countless times before. Places from another time flashed in his memory. Past betrayals made, past welcomes fled. Portugal. Tokyo. Sydney. London. Moscow.

Sniper.

The words came quickly and without much pain on his part. His voice was as casual and brisk as ever when he replied:

"Well I can assure you that the threat I was presented with was undoubtedly ten times worse than whatever they dragged up about you-"

The chair clattered to the floor, accompanied by an angry hiss.

"Like hell! Don't go thinkin' you're the only one here who's got something to lose, mate, 'cause you aren't."

"Then you understand even better the need we have to obey orders, yes?"

There was a frustrated growl and some fickle sounds of footsteps. After a moment, he heard the chair being righted and tucked back under the table. A deep sigh followed.

"So this is how it's gonna be, huh?"

Spy had nothing left to say, so he watched some vultures circling in the distance. He wondered if his heart was what they were feeding upon, swallowing down in bloody gulps until only gristly pulp was left.

It would be nice to finally be rid of it, that heart.

Sniper stood a little ways behind him, looking at that same view. So alien and familiar all at once. Spy's shoulder might as well have been a million miles away, for how much he felt he could lay a hand on it and embrace the man it belonged to.

Fine.

"I thought you were better than that. Could've at least given me a kiss good bye. Should 'a known better, I suppose."

For such a tall man, Sniper was surprisingly light on his feet. He made hardly any sound as he left the room, the door whispering shut the only sound of his departure.

Spy turned away from the vultures and crushed his hands to his eyes.

* * *

Miss Pauling was silent on the drive back to base. Sniper did the same as he had done on the drive out. The windows were still blacked out, but he didn't care.

The shorthand notes Miss Pauling was trying to write down petered out and eventually her pen stopped altogether. He was trying to hide it, she knew. On the way out, he'd been nervous, tense even. Now, concealed as his anger and hurt and betrayal was, the animosity rolled off him like waves breaking on the shore. She was quite aware that the man sitting across from her was the assassin hired to kill, and not the shy, reserved man who could play the saxophone.

The folder of photographs lay between them like an anchor.

There were numerous copies filed away at Administration, of course. But he didn't know that. All they'd had to do was tip their hand, and things were back on track.

She still felt a little ashamed of having had to be the bearer of bad news. Who knew, perhaps with time, something more might've bloomed between the RED Sniper and BLU Spy. It might've been nice to see flowers in all colours spread out over the desert of the Gravel War.

The scrub had been cleared by fire, though, and nothing was going to grow anymore. She reminded herself it was their fault for fraternising with the enemy.

Without a word, her pen picked up where it had left off.

The car pulled in at base an indeterminate amount of time later. Sniper exited the car briskly, but not in a hurry. When Miss Pauling did so too, and extended her hand for the usual handshake Sniper found fit to end their rare meetings with, he walked right past her as though she wasn't there. Kept going until he was inside the base.

Not a word.

She sighed and signalled the guards to get back in the car. The black vehicle disappeared over the horizon in a trail of red dust.

* * *

Later that night, Sniper sat up on the roof of the base. Pyro was elsewhere that night, occupied by a game of snap with Scout.

Sniper was fine with that.

He left the fire barrel also up on the roof unlit, and he didn't give a damn when the night wind would occasionally cut through the sheep's fleece lining of his leather jacket. The folder lay on his lap, flat and disappointing. Stars laughed in the sky up above.

Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. He reached into the folder and pulled out a photograph. It was too dark to make out what it showed, but he could imagine. With a purposeful motion, he tore the photograph in two. The scraps fluttered away on the breeze.

One by one, the evidence of his affections with the BLU Spy drifted away into the night. It came to be that eventually he ran out of photographs, and there was only one square of glossy paper that remained. This time, he hesitated when going to tear it. He held it up closer to his face, turned a little so the light spilling out from the fire escape behind him fell onto the photograph.

The murky shapes and colours resolved into two hands, intertwined tightly, held up against the wall. To the side, two bodies partially visible, skin to skin, shadows mingling. He looked hard at how the BLU Spy's knuckles were white. How his own, criss-crossed with scars, held that hand close and tight.

With a faint huff of bitterness, he tore the photograph straight down the middle, separating that hand-hold. The fragments flew away on the breeze easily, taking the last of Sniper's affections with them

He felt lighter for it. Free, almost. But the lack of weight there was almost too much, to the point where he felt hollow inside. If Pyro drew one of their clumsy crayon sketches of him now, he fancied all that would be on the page would be a dotted line around his shape, and empty space within.

He wanted to just drift away like those photographs. Rise up from the roof and just keep going, until base was just a speck left to dissolve on the endless red diorama of the desert. But then the wind bit at him and he shivered, and he went back inside.

When he upended the folder, one final photograph slid out. It was of Spy, candid as the rest, smoking after one of their flings. Sniper shoved it into the pocket of his jeans bitterly without really looking.

Who knew, the bastard would probably make an excellent bull's-eye on his dartboard.

2 YEARS LATER - AFTER THE WAR.

When the announcement came, Scout whooped for joy. Within seconds, the entire BLU team was on their feet, hooting and hollering and singing disjointed anthems and rude songs and half a hundred other things. Sitting on the bench, their Sniper had little to say other than a deep sigh of relief attached to which were four years of anguish and misery and fatigue. Spy imagined that sigh floating up out of the room, taking all their pains with it.

The door flew open as Scout and Pyro raced outside, the mess hall not having enough room for their more exuberant celebrations. Swinging each other round in circles, their feet kicked up red sand, leaving a mishmash of footprints in the centre of the base. Demo and Soldier shortly joined them, and the celebration dissolved into a wrestling match of sorts.

Spy drifted away, further into the base, to begin packing. No one noticed him leave.

The radio chattered quietly on his windowsill. Some saccharine ditty of the moment warbled by a young woman, but he wasn't listening. The nicer of his suits he zipped into dry cleaning bags, before folding them gently into the bottom of his bag. The Ambassador, one of the finer of his weapons, was returned to the velvet-lined case in which it had been presented to him. The radio he decided to leave behind.

It took him only ten minutes to empty the room of his possessions. The paintings in the smoking room he decided to sell on, and have the proceeds donated to charity. He wouldn't need them where he was going.

There was one last thing which he took before locking the room. He lifted up the mattress and peeled off the little slip of paper pressed into it. The colours of the photograph had faded over time, and little white lines had been impressed into it where it'd been folded into halves, then quarters, many times before.

The summer sunlight beating through the window warmed the colours back to life.

It had taken him a while to put two and two together, two years ago. He'd found the torn scrap of a photograph trapped under the door to the mess hall, covered in a thin film of red dust. Curious, he had picked it up, brushed the dust away. Swallowed uneasily when he realised the man in the photograph was the RED Sniper, standing half-naked. His shirt was clutched in one hand.

In the photograph, he was turned away from the camera. Studying, perhaps, the faint figure who was only a smudge in the background of the picture. He took a moment to look at it, to really look.

It was the wires and antennas poking out of the top of the building the Sniper was leaning against the made it all click.

The Radio room.

Sniper.

Damn.

With an uneasy breath, he realised what Administration had held over him. Photographs, of them. Undoubtedly there were others much more incriminating than this. Perhaps the threat had been to expose Sniper as a homosexual to the rest of his team, or to post them to someone close to him.

As close as they had been at one time, Spy had never known much about Sniper. Just where he came from, what he'd been doing before joining RED. Hell, he didn't even know his name.

Without really thinking about what he was doing, he folded the photograph up and tucked it up his sleeve.

In one way or another, that photograph scrap had accompanied him throughout the rest of his stay with BLU. Kept between the pages of books, or sequestered under the mattress, it was always there, waiting for him. Every time he looked at it, he considered throwing it away. And every time, he changed his mind.

Now was the last time he would make that decision though. Spy had no desire to keep mementoes from his stay with BLU. He'd missed out on four years of his life, four goddamn years when he could've been travelling, stealing, living the fine life of the neon city nights. But instead he'd been in the middle of nowhere, fighting some stupid war, which never even ended with a winner.

He didn't want to remember those four years. He hoped, with time, that his memory would erase them for him. But if he kept this photo, the desert would always remain sharp in his mind, as would the memory of a man he nearly, almost felt something for.

Spy allowed himself to dally a little longer. He shoved the scrap into his pocket and headed down to the garage. He said a few words of parting to his team mates, none of whom he was especially fond of, apart from perhaps Heavy, whom he'd always made a habit of playing chess with when he found his mind filled with static.

The blue sports car was sleek and shiny and inviting. He threw his bag onto the back seat, along with the dog-eared copy of The Bell Jar, which he'd been introduced to and come to love over the last year.

Like Esther, he felt as though he'd seen everything there was to see, and that he was at some pivotal moment when he would either be reborn and enter the world anew, or drown in the shadows of his past. The engine of the car revved once, twice, before he pulled out onto the road leading out of the base.

Truthfully, he didn't know where he was going. Somewhere, undoubtedly. There were informants he should check up on, safe houses if he was in a pinch. Suddenly presented with the opportunity for freedom, and he had no idea where to go.

He took the photograph out of his pocket.

Sniper's back greeted him, lean and golden and scarred as the first time he'd dragged his gloved fingernails over it. How cold he had been, that day in Administration.

With a faint smile, he regarded the photo one last time before stowing it away in the glove locker. He could decide what to do with it later.

As he pulled out onto the road proper, he thought of all the memories he would be leaving behind, and he wondered idly what his team mates would go on to do. Scout had expressed concern about his mother, and would perhaps return to Boston to help her out with the bills. Medic received word from an old friend in Switzerland, who was looking for help setting up a private clinic. Demo and Heavy were both going to take some time off, do a little travelling together, seeing as they were both taking the same plane back to the European continent.

One by one, they were going to drift off like dandelion seeds in the breeze and, hopefully, put down roots. That was a luxury Spy couldn't afford, though he had entertained idle daydreams of some neat little apartment deep in the heart of Paris.

He almost missed the campervan parked on the side of the road. But there was a flash of red, and someone waving wildly to him, and before he could think better of it, he'd slowed the sports car and parked. Getting out, he wondered what the problem was.

The problem was that it was the RED Sniper.

He seemed equally surprised to see Spy, though he reigned it in remarkably well. As though he had never had that man up to his balls in his ass, Spy strode over, grateful for the cover his sunglass provided. Smoke trickled weakly from under the hood of the campervan.

"Is there a problem?"

Sniper glanced at the campervan for a moment and considered it. His yellow aviators were hooked in the front of his t-shirt and it was such a casual, unusual thing to see that Spy found himself fixated by the way the frames flashed in the sun.

"Yeah...Radiator's out of water. Not goin' anyway till I can fill 'er up again."

Spy knew full well that in the small trunk of his car, there were two large bottles of water, which he had kept in there in the event he himself broke down in the middle of the desert and did not fancy dying of thirst. He considered leaving Sniper there, morose and helpless, decided better.

"I've got water. Help me carry it, will you?"

Without waiting for a reply, he began the walk back to the sports car, still idling with a feline purr. Sniper fell into step beside him easily.

It was only a short walk back to the campervan, but the bottles were heavy. Beads of sweat glittered on Sniper's brow and his own. There was a quiet hiss as the thirsty engine gulped down that precious water. Spy watched it flow into the radiator with detached interest.

"I'm sorry."

Sniper glanced up in confusion, forced himself to look away. He'd never seen either of the Spies maskless before, and the one employed by BLU up until a few hours ago was good looking without it. The dry wind played a little with the silver strands in his hair. Sniper grunted.

"For what?" was his reply.

"For what I said in Administration."

For three seconds exactly, Sniper's blood was replaced with ice water.

"That was two years ago, mate."

"That doesn't make my behaviour any more acceptable. You...Deserved more than a cold shoulder from me. I thought I was making a clean break, but all I did was make things more difficult. So. I'm sorry."

Sniper waited until the last drops of water were swallowed by the radiator before deigning to reply.

"...Thanks, mate. For apologising, I mean."

Spy couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he looked out at the shimmering horizon before changing the subject.

"What do you plan on doing now, then?"

"Probably gonna head back home. See how the farm's held up in my absence. Might give it over to the government as park land though. What about you?"

Spy thought about all of the things he could be doing, all of the places he could go, and boiled his response down to something simpler:

"I don't know yet. Travel, perhaps. Find some old acquaintances, if the time is right."

A moment passed.

"So probably never gonna see you again, huh?"

Spy blinked and chose a reply carefully. He felt the photo staring at him through the glove locker in his car.

"Maybe not. My work takes me many places. Australia might be one of them."

Sniper nodded, and screwed the cap back on the radiator, rolling his words around in his mouth as though tasting a fine wine.

"Maybe y' could drop by sometime, if I give  you the address. I dunno what Spies get up to off the field, but I'm guessin' it's not office job type stuff. Could be a good safe house for you or somethin'."

Spy couldn't disagree with that, but he knew if he had that address written down on a slip of paper, he'd want to go and see it first chance he got,  if only to know more about this curious man he definitely had no interest in.

"I could. But it would be unsafe for you to give that address to me, should it fall into the hands of...Men who are not fond of me. I will give you this instead, and then you can decide if you still want to tell me."

Before Sniper could protest, Spy had taken his wrist and with a biro plucked from his pocket, written down a string of numbers on the back of his hand. He couldn't see a country code on it that he recognised. The air smelt of hot metal and dust and opportunities.

Spy wondered obscenely for a quarter-second if there would be a kiss. A belated kiss to make up for the one he had cheated Sniper out of two years ago. But the campervan, having drunk it's fill, gurgled and burped and Sniper's piercing blue gaze was stolen away by the engine block. The moment skittered away into the desert like a startled lizard.

The idling engine of the sports car called Spy away. The interior was dark and cool and smelt of the crisp ozone of air-conditioning. He heard the campervan grumble and wheeze into life behind him. In the rear-view mirror, he saw Sniper settle himself at the wheel and return his aviators to his face. For want of a more serious goodbye, Spy revved the engine once to gain his attention, twice to say the sentiment and a third and final time because he could think of no sound more sensual than the roaring pistons of a well-designed machine.

As politely as he could, he left Sniper's campervan in a wake of dust. The sun ticked across the sky in a blaze of heat. Vultures circled something in the heart of the desert.

Spy, with the exception of a phone number and a not-quite-photograph, felt free as a bird. The speedometer ticked up. 50. 55. 60. 75. 80. 90.

The sports car roared around him and sprinted down the road like a thoroughbred racehorse. The world outside dissolved into a speed blur of red, wind, and heat. Just because he could, he laughed madly as he broke the speed limit declared by a rusting sign by miles.

The roads of the Earth were endless, and he was going to see every mile of them before his phone rang.

As the scarab-blue back of the sports car vanished from sight, Sniper sighed in the sweaty interior of the campervan. He regarded his faint reflection in the windshield for a moment before flipping down the coffee-coloured visor that was held in place by little more than duct tape and willpower. Tucked into the slits of fabric meant for CDs and other such things was a scrap of paper.

He studied the rakish lines of the BLU Spy's jaw, circa two years ago. In the photograph, he was glancing surreptitiously about as he smoked, his mouth obscured by an elegant hand about to remove the cigarette held in place there. He imagined the face he now knew was underneath the mask, the silver-streaked hair that had tumbled loosely in the wind.

With the stub of a pencil, he copied down the number on the back of his hand onto the edge of the photograph before wiping the ink from his skin and flipping the visor back up.

An opportunity was now hidden in the folds of the campervan like a pearl within an oyster. He'd never know it was there unless he looked, and out of sight with regards to Spy was most definitely out of mind, if the last two years were anything to go by.

Flipping on the radio, and humming along to some red-blooded rock and roll song, Sniper turned the steering wheel hard to the right and made an illegal U-turn, heading away from one of the most interesting and infuriating men he'd ever met.

_"Well luck is expensive and freedom comes cheap_  
_When love's on the menu, I don't drink so deep_  
_Well I was just out there to have me some fun_  
_But it's easier said than done"_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Some Rolling Stones lyrics at the end, because I'm a sucker for prog rock and I can't help but think of TF2 when I listen to them. Also, "Happy", the song which those lyrics are from, was originally released in 1972, making it almost era-accurate for when the Gravel Wars end.
> 
> Also, I've recently finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and not to spoil it for any who have yet to read it, but the section in which Sniper tears up the photographs and lets them blow away on the wind was directly inspired by a scene in the book when Esther Greenwood throws her clothes off her balcony, into the rooftop winds of New York. I'm also currently reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and it's become one of my favourite books. Consequently, I apologise if my writing style changes drastically half-way throughout this fic, as it's roughly after Sniper's spat with Spy in Administration that I read both TBJ and Cloud Atlas.
> 
> ~Leon
> 
> Like what you've read? [Please consider leaving me a tip!](http://www.paypal.me/heckmedic)


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